1.) In our lifetimes, keepers have spent much time feeling like God has either abandoned or betrayed everyone in our system.  Almost always, feeling this way has come with the strong sense that keepers are just not good enough for God and never have been.  Maybe even that God blames keepers for all that has gone wrong in our family.  But, when these feelings come over keepers, there is always a moment when the story of Jesus comes into our minds.  We recall the story of Jesus crying out MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?  which is the exact feeling keepers have had so often.  So, we stop to think about how Jesus is the son of God and loved so dearly by God yet was sent to earth to do so much suffering for the sake of mankind.  Keepers love Jesus so much because His story is living proof that how much any human being suffers on this earth has nothing at all to do with how much God loves us.  I am not sure any keeper really understands what our suffering has to do with but we love Jesus so much for being living proof that our suffering is never a personal affront where God is out to get us.  And Jesus has shown us that it is only human nature to ask why God has forsaken us when things are going so horribly wrong in our lives.

2.)  Keepers grew up in the Catholic Church where we learned about the HOLY TRINITY.  We were constantly making the sign of the cross.  IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN.  But in Catechism class, we were taught that it is called the HOLY TRINITY because God is made up of the three different and separate parts of the Trinity.  At some point, one of our littles saw this as multiplicity and went Oh, just like us.  Keepers love Jesus for being a multiple in a way and, thereby, giving keepers a very good and real way to relate to Jesus.

3.)  Jesus said THE CHRIST IN ME IS THE CHRIST IN YOU.  Keepers believe that what Jesus meant was that all of us have the same ability to love and be loved that Jesus displayed while on earth.  WE believe that Jesus meant that there is a part of each and every human being which remains untouched and unharmed by our experiences here on earth.  We believe this is true no matter what someone endures while living an earthly life.  Keepers love Jesus for giving us that part of Himself which can never be destroyed by what life here on earth holds for us.

4.)  Keepers love Jesus because he made if ok for keepers (and everyone) to feel their human feelings.  During His time on this earth, Jesus felt and displayed the full range of human emotions.  Jesus had times when he felt and expressed anger or even rage.  He had times where He showed his great love for others.  He had moments of feeling betrayed by those He trusted and times when Jesus was just bone tired and too weary to go on.  Jesus displayed times of feeling great joy and times of showing deep sorrow.  But, mostly, Jesus showed us that human emotions were made to be acknowledged and experienced.  Jesus showed us that it is ok to confront those who betray us but that it is also good to always forgive when the time is right. Thank you, Jesus, for making it ok for human beings to feel the feelings we feel.

5.  In today, Jesus is where keepers turn when we need to feel heard or understood.  We turn to Him because Jesus himself to be the best listener ever.  Jesus only listen silently and lets keepers talk to our hearts content.  Jesus always respects our feelings and allows us time to simply vent without judging us in any way.  Jesus knows the whole of keepers–the good and the bad; the hopeful and the defeated; the light and the dark of keepers.  Still, Jesus is always there with His loving Hand reaching out to keepers whenever we are willing to take hold and hang on.  But Jesus also accepts when keepers need to turn away from Him for whatever reason.  Still, He is always there when keepers are ready to come to back to Him.  Keepers love Jesus just simply because He is the very best friend any human being can ever have.

peace and blessings,

keepers

Nearly 36 hours ago, one of our blog friends tagged keepers to write a blog on the 5 things we love about Jesus.  This is a blog that keepers are wanting to write very much and our minds are in fact working on it as I type.  Unfortunately, keepers have sustained an injury to one of our legs.  It is so painful that even sitting at the computer for more than a couple of minutes is impossible for us.  However, we are hoping this will begin to feel better very soon so that we can sit at our computer and do our blog.  Until then, however, keepers ask for your patience and understanding.

peace and blessings,

keepers

This came to us from one of our cyber friends, one of her young ones read it to us and we asked if it was okay to put up on our blog so that others could enjoy it.

Little Girl Who Became Well

…And once, once there was a little girl.  A Little girl who had all the right things at the wrong times…and in all the wrong places.  And this Little Girl learned up was down, that bad was good, that wrong was right and that white was various shades of gray.  And this confused and hurt her.

But somewhere, deep inside, Little Girl didn’t believe what she was being taught.  And yet, who was she not to believe?  She was just a little girl.  How could she possibly know…what was right?  Especially when right was wrong.

So Little Girl learned and learned all she was taught.  Somehow, perhaps by using what she had deep down, she knew that not learning would mean not surviving–and that would be wrong.  And it was hard, very hard.  There was always a war going on inside Little Girl.  And all the strong messages that wrongs were right fell upon her deep down places and tried to wear it down, to wash it away, bit by bit.  And deep down had to go deeper down to survive.

And somehow, someway, the deep down survived and waited…and gathered its own strength quietly, silently.  And built a strong wall around itself and continued to wait…patiently.

And there came a time, many a time, when Little Girl began to believe that wrong was right and that her deep down was right but wrong.  And she closed her ears and eyes to it.  But still, the deep down part of her survived–unseen and unheard it continued to be and to wait.

So as hard as Little Girl tried to believe what she was taught, the deep down kept the doubt alive.  And kept the war inside the Little Girl going.

Oh, there was only a distant, very distant rumble when deep down spoke, and it was easy for ears not to hear that.  But ears and eyes could not defeat deep down.  Because…in her wisdom and her strength, Little Girl had helped build that wall around deep down…so that it was safe and so that she could not defeat it, try as she might.

And maybe sometimes life is fair and maybe sometimes it is not.  If Little Girl had not helped build that wall around deep down, and she had not built it strong enough–then it would have been defeated.

And as Little Girl became woman she somehow had the strength to always, always, keep that wall intact.  And one day that wall and that deep down, in some magic way, became a well…a well filled with the little girl’s tears of wisdom that had distilled into pure white strength.  And it was a well that could be dipped into and that could magically refill itself the more it was emptied.

And Woman Who Was Once Little Girl learned to fashion a dipper that was just the right kind of dipper to reach deep down into the well and draw up her own distilled strength, dipper by dipper, time by time.

But it wasn’t easy.  The well was so deep and the dipper so small and the hand was unpracticed and sometimes trembled.  And it took time and unlearning and hope and love and faith.

But Woman Who Was Once Little Girl kept dipping.  And after much practice her hand trembled less and the well kept refilling until it came to flowing and it began to fill more and more of her.  Although it took a long time for this to happen it became so much easier to dip as the well swelled and overflowed.  And it became easier to offer others a dip because the well prospered and flowed strongly in its steadiness and sweetness.

And so it was…that Little Girl who knew all the right things at the wrong times and in the wrong places found the right time and the right place…and right became right.  And Little Girl became Well.

She sang songs that had not been sung and tasted tears that were not so bitter…and became whole.

Lost

By Polly, for Keepers

Lost-One long chain of precious days-

Each one linked together with golden memories

and inlaid with twenty four crystal hours.

Every hour has been illuminated with 60 shining minutes

Lost somewhere between then and now.

Not suitable for any other.

They were crafted just for me.

Some are touched by sunshine and rainbows.

Others are clouded with storms that came my way.

Each one contains a truth I have yet to know.

Some may be stained with tears,

While others have been tarnished by sorrow

And, a few may have been destroyed by fiery rage.

One side glistens with undying hope;

The other has been dulled by the despair of endless pain.

If you find my golden chain of lost time, please return to me.

Condition matters not.

What you may see as broken beyond repair

can be pieced back together with enough tender loving care.

No reward can be offered for this chain of unaccounted days

For it holds no value to you.

Yet is priceless in my world of me.

Today is one of those days when the words are just not coming together in a way that would make sense to anyone.  Not because keepers have nothing to say or because we are caught up in some kind of confusion.  In fact, neither one of these is the least bit true.  Our problem seems to be that too many ideas are spinning around and too many alters want their turn to speak.  So, I may write a paragraph and someone else comes out to veer off in his/her own direction.  And so on and so forth until an alter comes to the surface to delete a blog that has not one real direction and makes not the least bit of sense.

The truth is that summer here in St. Louis can be a miserable experience.  The older keepers get, the more we see the truth of this.  We always wait as long as we can to turn on our air conditioner.  We hate turning it on because it means keeping the doors and windows shut which makes keepers feel very shut off from the world.  We have no idea why it is but we feel more shut off when the air is on during summer than we do when the heat is on during winter.  Maybe that is because keepers are much more willing to set foot outside in the bitter cold than in the weight of summer humidity around here.  Besides which, the weather men are saying the humidity is extreme this year which is saying a lot for this area since we are known for high humidity during the summer months.  Anyway, with the air conditioning on, keepers are much more likely to deal with our own autonomy and our loneliness than we do at any other time of the year.  It takes some adjusting for keepers to get past things and move along with business as normal here at KEEPERSKORNER.  We always manage to do it but it takes us a few days to find the right balance for our system to maintain a positive outlook on things.

At this time of year, keepers rely much more on our waterfalls and aromatherapy and favorite cds to create a soothing environment for us.  We know that we do better when we control the environment around us by choosing smells and sounds as we move through our days.  We also become more committed to our yoga and meditation practices as a means of keeping ourselfs in balance and clear headed.  This is important to us because the more clear headed we are the better we live our mindful and present way of life.  I guess this way of life might be called living in the moment.  For us, it is the best way to be.  Even though our moments may be lonely at times, they are so much better than they used to be.  And worrying about what will come is something keepers have learned to never do.  The future is something that has to take care of itself because it is way too much for keepers to worry about.

Before long, our John Michael will be coming in the door with dinner in hand.  Tonight, we are having sub sandwiches from a local restaurant.  We chose these because time for supper is short tonight.  After we eat and catch up on each others days, our work here at KEEPERSKORNER will continue through much of the night.  There is a lot to do for KEEPERSKORNER this evening.  But it really is funny because when keepers are doing what we love the time passes quickly and in hindsight we see that we have accomplished an awful lot in just a few short hours.  Thus, when midnight rolls around and we crawl into bed, keepers have some sense of satisfaction from having done a good job for KEEPERSKORNER that day.  That sense of being satisfied in one way or another with our own performance is what keeps us going–even under the worst working conditions at times.

Keepers are hoping to spend some time at our easel tonight.  We have not done that in days.  Although we are back to doing our artwork–we still find it a real struggle at times.  But we do make some progress which is what spurs us to keep on trying.  I still can not explain why our artwork has become such a challenge for us when it is also a source of tranquility for keepers.  I just know that is has become a sense of peace that keepers value even more because it is so difficult for us to maintain.

Well ,the phone is ringing so I had better go.

peace and blessings,

keepers

Max and Owen have been at it again!! They never cease to amuse and yes sometimes, frustrate the you know what out of keepers. Sometimes they just have to get into everything, you can take them off of the drafting table, turn around to get a cup of coffee and when keepers get back to the drafting table there is one of them sprawled out all over the picture we were working on. It is not a mat to sleep on but they do not believe that.

Several days ago it became wrestling at keeperskorner as the two of them came barreling in and began their rough and tumble act! They will roll and jump and pounce and then freeze, staring at each other, waiting for the next move of the opponent and then….it is bath time! Right in the middle of this wrestling to the death they decide, oh I got my fur mussed, must get that regroomed, so they proceed to clean up for a about 30 seconds or so, then one of them decides he has had enough cleaning up, let’s wrestle!!! And off they go again, down the hall into a bedroom back down the hall through the studio down the basement steps then silence. Maybe a “reow” in there and then the thundering of kitty paws back up the steps and into the living room where the actual wrestling moves take place again. It could last another 30 seconds it could last another 3 or 4 minutes, we have no idea how long these rounds are, it varies on the challenge and the amount of destruction already incurred.

As we told you in a previous blog, Max tried to climb into the wall when the plumber was here, well the plumber had to come back to install a water heater so the night before the water heater sat in our kitchen, in other words it was a challenge waiting to be met and conquered. They took turns, Owen went first, jumping onto the kitchen table then onto the water heater box but max had to outdo him, after Owen got down at John’s request Max got up there, but he jumped from the floor to the top of the box, from there he realized he was only a foot or so away from the room divider which is only 1 1/2 inches wide! Max thinks he is Spider Cat so he jumps from the water heater to the divider and then proceeds to do his impersonation of the Flying Wallendas by walking the 1 1/2 inch wide divider to the half wall divider he and Owen usually relax on.

Our boys, we think we will keep them.

Peace and blessings to all

Keepers

Do Not Judge My Fears

By Polly, for Keepers

Do not judge my fears,

My angers,

My frustrations;

My feelings.

Do not judge me.

Not yet, at least.

You have no right!!

You may think I have let you know me.

And, even, that you understand.

It can not be.

I’m not sure it ever will!

I do not know if I can commit myself

To letting you know just who I am;

Or what it is that grows within my heart;

Or how it came to be there.

What it is that lies behind me,

Or what I am looking for in my tomorrows.

I do not know how to tell you

Why it is I do not know

How much you can understand or accept.

Or what it is I fear if I go beyond your ability to understand.

Do not judge my fears as without basis,

Unless you know exactly how they came to be there.

The truth of today is that keepers are rapidly approaching the golden years of our lives.  We walk around with our AARP card tucked safely in our wallet.  Because of our age, some restaurants already give us discounts on Early Bird dinners.  Still, keepers are in very good health and our frame of mind is usually more on the positive side than anything else.  But our aging means that we have days when our muscles ache and our bones creak as we do our yoga.  It also means we deal with those times when we look at our lives and grieve the fact that things have not turned out the way we thought they would which leads to us blogging about our issues with our mother and our daughters.  But, mostly, blogs that let everyone know keepers still have issues with God that we are struggling to work out.

The truth is that keepers are living the life we always dreamed of living–just not with the people we thought we would be living it with.  Keepers are getting to experience the joys of having been a daughter and of being a loving mother and even of being a doting Grandma.  We are just not experiencing these things with our real mother or our actual daughters or our own beloved little granddaughters.  For so many years, we could not see the wonderful things we had in our lives simply because keepers were focused more on those who should love us than those who do love us.

This past Christmas (2006) keepers lost what we saw as a very dear friend.  Her name was Deana and we had known her for only a little over two years.  She was 96 years old when she passed and we had come to see her as a very precious woman–someone who taught keepers so much in such a short time.  During the time that keepers knew our dear Deana, we visited her several times a week.  We would go to her apartment for chats and we would visit her in the hospital and follow suit when she was in a rehab center for this injury or that one.  When Deana knew that she was at the end of her life, she had her own daughter call keepers to ask if we would be ther with Deana in the hospital and when she was moved to hospice.  At the time all of this was unfolding, keepers just moved automatically into helpful mode and quietly did what was asked of us.

Only now that our dear Deana has been gone for a while, can keepers see that somehow she had taken on the role of our loving mother.  She had always spoken kindly to keepers and shown us the simple respect people deserve–unlike the senior citizens in our own family had ever done.  Looking back, keepers can see that our love for Deana had grown so quietly that we barely knew it was there until she had already left this earth.  Our relationship with Deana was such a good one.  She did challenge keepers at times but only in the gentlest of ways.  She did help us to grow and change through her words of wisdom.  But, mostly, she gave us the experience of being loved by someone of her age.  She gave us the opportunity to be the loving daughters keepers had always wanted to be.  In our hearts, our dear Deana will be the person we all see as our mother simply because she was so open to filling that role in keepers lives.  Keepers still grieve the loss of our dear Deana but we also thank God that we had the chance to know and love this woman who so freely treated keepers as her daughter.

Keepers have a very good friend who happens to be a non- denominational minister.  It is this man that keepers always turn to when we need to grieve the fact that keepers do not get to be mothers in this world any more.  Just the last few days, keepers have spoken often with our minister friend.  Just last night, though, our friend pointed out that keepers are mothers to many young women in today.  Some are old friends of our daughters, who now come and sit on our front porch for a friendly chat.  Some are young women that have little children of their own who call and share the stories of toddlers antics or of a first grader at pee wee baseball.  Plus we are mothers to our own little alters who look to bigs for their care and love in today.  But what our friend so wisely pointed out is that keepers are mothers to many in today.  The young people who come to keepers do not have to be blood for us to experience the love and joy mothers feel for their children.  This morning, keepers woke up having processed our friends words and knowing full well that keepers are living the life of mothers just as we had always wanted to live.

But, I think mostly keepers dreamed of being Grandmas and giving so much joy to our little grandchildren.  We have been struggling hard to accept that this was not meant to be in our lives.  The truth is that we will not know that joy with the children of our external children.  This has been an almost crippling truth for keepers to deal with but we have come to see that we have many grandchildren all over the world who come to us as little alters in this system or that system wanting only to be loved.

Keepers know a little alter who has always called us Keepers Lady.  She has grown to be very dear to our hearts.  We love sending her little things that make her happy and let her know that she is loved.  But, the best part of knowing this little alter, is the fact that our faces light up with happiness when we hear her voice on the other end of the phone or see her pink letters in an IMing message.  We may not be this little alters true Grandma but we feel that Grandma love for her and that is good enough for us.

Just the other day, a system of alters received a rag doll from KEEPERSKORNER.  The littles were thrilled to get it and wanted to take it everywhere with them–much to the chagrin of the bigs in the system.  But keepers will always remember the fun we had on our hours long shopping trip to find just the right rag doll for these littles.  We will always remember the anticipation of waiting for it to arrive in their post office box.  We even tacked up on our wall the thank you note from the littles.  The truth is that in doing the shopping and making the purchase and waiting for the package to arrive, keepers got to feel the Grandma joy of giving to a child we love just simply because we wanted to do that.

The money keepers would have put into our children and grandchildren all now gets filtered into KEEPERSKORNER.  We are still doing the same giving that we had done within our family for so many years.  But, now, people reach out to say thank you and to send us smiling faces to put up on our WALL OF WONDERFUL.  SO, in a very real way keepers are getting to still experience the life we always wanted to live–which makes each and every one of us so very happy.

These last few days, keepers have felt devastated because all we saw was how our world is supposed to be and how far from that reality we are.  We forgot to take the time to look beyond those truths and see what lies in our reality of today.  Over the last 24 hours keepers have taken that deeper look and seen that we are very blessed indeed because we have been the experiences we always wanted.  It is true that our daughterhood and our motherhood and our grandmotherhood are very different and extremely unique but that only makes them all the more special.

peace and blessings,

keepers

Dear friends, Marj aka Thriver is hosting the anniversary carnival event and we would like to invite everyone to visit it, read the blogs and articles, some by our friends here, and leave comments also! You can get there via this link, Blog Carnival at Marjs and follow the directions on her post.

peace and blessings to all

keepers

It has been several years since our first KEEPERSKORNER went live.  Our very first website carried mostly artwork but got very little traffic.  Over the ensuing years keepers put our artwork on other artists site.  Among these were YESSY and AMATEUR ARTISTS and SURVIVORS ART FOUNDATION.  Keepers were always pleased with the way we were treated by various art sites and we began recommending them to other artists as a means of getting their work seen and possibly sold.  Keepers have come to know a multitude of artists and we know the more exposure art gets the better it is for the artist so we were happy to refer them to the above art sites.

Last July, John and keepers took KEEPERSKORNER from being a site that sold art work to the charitable organization it is today.  Since we went to giving our art work as gifts on our site–we chose not to continue trying to sell artwork on other sites.  Both YESSY and AMATEUR ARTISTS were notified that we no longer wished to have our work on their sites and that we would no longer pay the fee for their services.  For the past year, we have not even thought about this as we had terminated our relationships on good terms with both of these sites.

However, around 2 weeks ago, a charge showed up on our bank account for $60.00 from YESSY for the next year of services.  We went back through our records and found and email they had sent which at the bottom of it there was a place to click to terminate their services for us.  However, we had already terminated a year ago so we assumed it was not necessary to do it again.

John contacted YESSY several times to let them know that keepers no longer wanted our artwork on their site.  John asked them repeatedly to withdraw the charges and make restitution by clearly our artwork off of YESSY (as we had requested one year ago).  YESSY responded with a hateful attitude and an email saying they had our money and would not refund it in spite on knowing we had terminated our relationship one year before.   We thought by writing them a letter last year, the relationship would simply be ended.  However, YESSY held on to our financial information and filed another charge just a few weeks ago.  John has even gone to the lengths of proving to YESSY that KEEPERSKORNER went to being a charitable organization a year ago.  YESSY has been nothing but dishonest and rude in their treatment of this situation.

The charges YESSY made were allowed to go through.  Now, our bank is filing a dispute for KEEPERSKORNER against YESSY for filing fraudulent charges against our account.  We thank our bank for standing by us and taking this action against YESSY for KEEPERSKORNER.

Over the last couple of years, we have recommended YESSY to many artist friends.  We did this in good faith that YESSY was an honest and fair website.  Now, the truth of YESSY’S dishonest practices has come to light so we at KEEPERSKORNER rescind our endorsement of YESSY for any artist.  There is no way KEEPERSKORNER can support a website that has such unethical professional practices.

Thank you,

keepers